As a drone operator and company owner, this means you’re always trying to find ways to increase the profits of your drone business.
A key part of this is finding the best drone at the lowest cost, but that always comes at the expense of flight time. Because right now there are only two options.
- Option 1: An inexpensive commercial drone that costs around $12,000 (or more) that gets you any kind of payload capacity up to 5 pounds and a flight time of 30 minutes.
- And option 2: a commercial drone with much longer flight times (perhaps an hour or more) using exotic materials (and designs), but would cost $50,000 to $100,000 or more.
Option 1, despite all its unique challenges, has always been a manageable choice. Yes, I will purchase additional batteries. I would be running back and forth to the job site wasting time changing batteries. I’ll monitor and charge my batteries in my office, in my SUV, and anywhere I can find a plug, so I’m not left panicking on the job site worrying if I have enough battery to get the job done.
I am planning to purchase several drones and have purchased them regularly. Yes, you are incurring costs (which also reduces your profits), but it is still better than the initial cost of option 2.
Modovolo’s co-founders, CTO Erik and CEO Justin, also experienced the same pain. Erik is an aerospace engineer and former USAF captain. But most importantly, he has been a commercial drone pilot for the past five years. He saw the same problems in Option 1 and Option 2 and recognized the core problem with both.
“We realized that the reason the drone had such a short flight time was because of its fixed hub design. There is a lot of redundant and excessive structure. That adds a lot of weight. And the propeller design and electric motor RPM are very inefficient. “When you put those things together, it means the flight time is shorter.”
I too have had similar thoughts. Drone design hasn’t really evolved that much since drones appeared 15 years ago.
But Eric went one step further.
Erik explains: “Why should I buy a new drone for each application? It was driving me crazy. You just spent $12,000 on a drone that can carry a 5-pound payload, but you later find out that other tasks have a 7-pound payload. However, this meant spending an additional $18,000 to purchase a drone suitable for that payload. It’s really crazy. Imagine if Dell required you to buy one computer for word processing and one computer for spreadsheets. We will never agree to that. Why do we agree on this about drones?”
I think we all have similar ideas, but it’s not clear how to address all of these issues in current drone design.
Justin says: “We knew we had to rethink drone design from the ground up. It’s a complete departure from what has been done so far. We also knew that to drastically reduce costs, we had to avoid expensive materials as well as anything that would complicate the manufacturing process.”
This is where the hero enters the story – the bicycle wheel.
Erik explains: “We made a lot of prototypes, but nothing worked. We didn’t get the breakthrough lightness we wanted, enough to achieve amazing flight times. That’s when the proverbial light bulb went off. I realized that bicycle wheels had all the properties we needed. Light, strong and sturdy. “It’s a truly underrated technological marvel and no one has ever thought of using it in aerospace.”
It is also where the Lego concept was born.
Erik continues: “Next we realized that bicycle wheels had another advantage. This meant we were no longer limited to one design. You can link them together in any configuration you want to accomplish your mission. Does lifting a heavier payload require more thrust or more flight time? Add more lift pods.”
After two and a half years of development and filing numerous patents to protect all aspects of the Lift Pod and its modularity concept, the team came out of stealth mode and launched a pre-order website in March 2024.
“We are in the process of setting up our first manufacturing production cell and are offering limited pre-orders of 200 units. “Eligible customers will receive guaranteed production priority, special access to our engineering team, a limited-edition Modobolo T-shirt, and instructions on which type of utility pod to build first.” Justin says:
Visit modovolo.com to learn more and place your pre-order today.
